The Universe Burns
by The General Electric
Summary: The Death of Steven Universe.


**The Universe Burns**

**A Short Story about Prismo-O's Birth.  
Part of the Hero's Manual One Shots**

_Should Go Without Saying I don't Own Gravity Falls or Steven Universe_

**Takes place an unspecified time after the Mushroom War's End**

* * *

At 55, Steven could safely say he had lived a fulfilling life with very few regrets.

Standing in front of an almost unrecognizable Obsidian (Chaos Magic apparently compensated for the lack of his Diamond in the fusion) he had come to consider, a least a little, that not pushing Dipper on the issue of the Multi-Dimensional Pyramid he and his sister talked about occasionally might just be one.

"Oh man, Steven, Stevie." The body of Dipper Pines, aged 51 going on 12, crowed from atop the monolithic creature. "Am I glad Pine Tree made friendly with you, Pink. A whole new avenue of power to travel though, Magic space rocks with limitless potential. An army at Dipper's finger tips, ready to rip existence from the sky."

A sigh and a flash, Pink swords coalescing behind Steven in a halo. "Keep talking, Nacho Chip. It's going to make it all the more satisfying when I rip you out of Dipper's head." A click of his fingers saw the blades speed towards the fracturing Fusion, only for it to rip open it's mouth, arrows ('_Pearl's... Damnit'_) flying forward to meet the projectiles and shred him where he stood.

If he were still there of course.

A blink above Obsidian a Lion's roar echoing through space as a portal ripped open above the Gem's head, Steven falling with his trusty Shield held in front of him. The statue's arm's came up to block, the shooting star slamming into it at Lion boosted speeds.

_'They should have been able to dodge that.__ He's got control, but they're still FIGHTING!' _As he falls, he pops his shield to the side. Its form falters slightly before it snaps together. A pink bubble wrapped around him, just in time to bear the brunt of a sword strike that sent him flying towards the Temple.

He pops the bubble back into a shield under his feet, and with a small sliver of power, alters his trajectory so he hits the cliffs above the house instead of slamming through the front door.

Wouldn't do to interrupt Connie and the Diamonds.

"I can't believe that they'd flee here, to this ruined world!" _Cipher_ brags, his mere voice stirring something in Steven's head. "Earth exploded, no big deal, I'd take a century or two tormenting Pine Tree throughout the stars, come back here and torment him with his failure. But then, there I am floating through the cosmos, and I run into walking talking Space Rocks. That's when it hits me, the memory of a friend who's half Space Rock." Pushing off the cliff and into another Portal which puts him at Obsidian's knee, a blow of his shield buckling her. A sloppy punch meets thin air as he slips into another portal, launching out at the back of her head, right towards Cipher.

That's when he bounces off rune covered shield, splashing down in the ocean. "Come on now, I thought you were a warrior, a man of action and strategy. What's with this dollar store attack pattern Steven? Delaying for something? Maybe the little refugees you have hiding out in that house are planning something." A bow pops into one of Obsidian's hands, glowing a sickly yellow and covered in runes.

"Too bad, so sad." An arrow is launched, but a Lion Roars, and the arrow finds shield instead of house. No time to properly guard, Steven feels his ribs shatter at the force of impact as he craters into the Cliff again, only to instantly start healing as the inborn affinity for life that is Pink Diamond, knits them back together. Standing back up is an effort that is _felt_.

"As long as I'm alive, you will not touch them." The declaration is shaky, Obsidian is a monstrous opponent even when not being super charged with Chaos Magic and stripped of it's restraint. But he needs to do this, the Diamonds have a plan and Connie is helping. He just needs to survive, just needs to keep fighting for a little longer. So out from the crater he comes, to keep fighting on.

He fights on even after Obsidian spikes him into the beach.

He keeps going, even after Obsidian loses an arm, a tarnished Amethyst shattering in the sand, alongside his heart.

Even as Bill catches him for a second, and _tears _Lion out of his Soul, a knife flashing across his friends throat, he pushes on.

He keeps fighting even as Bill's magic swarms to the Gem and a distinctly WRONG mockery of Amethyst (Blunt, obnoxious, fun, loving, great with the kids and way too hard on herself) joins the assault on him.

Even as Pearl falls out of the Fusion (Still holding together, Bill's Magic copying and discarding the original pieces) one eye cracked the other bright yellow.

Even as she attempts to stab out what's left of his heart and only get's his arm instead, Steven fights.

But then the Corrupted (_Dead, Empty, Puppet_) Garnet falls to the sand, and between exhaustion, old age and the Chaotically charged Gems, Steven is laid out on the steps of his home. Down an arm, exhausted, Bill wrapping Lion's corpse around him like a mantle. "Stubborn, this kid you raised ladies." Bill's voice cackles from Dipper's mouth. "Or maybe you're all just pathet-"

His last attack, a wad of bloody spit dripping down his friend's stolen face.

"Well, aren't we just feeling sensitive today?" Bill mocks, cleaning off his face. "If you want that to be your last hurrah, bask in it Pink. For all of the 2 Seconds you have left." Its not screamed, Bill's voice doesn't raise, its all just viciously amused. As usual Steven supposes.

Only then there's a flash of White, and a bend in reality as White Diamond tears from the house and slams into Cipher. Yellow and Blue hands pulling him into the house.

Words are hard to make out, Steven thinks he might have a concussion, but he's put in front of Connie, who's laid back on the bed for some reason, eyes glowing Gems embedded into her skin, and Runes inked around the bed. Blue's chanting something, a spell maybe? Bit weird, the Gems didn't really have _magic._

Yellow stopped briefly, giving a curt nod and stepped out to join White in holding back Cipher. Wait, why was she missing a hand?

Blue's next to him now, peeling away his bloody rags and etching something onto his Gem, and laying something on his stomach next too... Oh. That's where Yellow's hand went, White's too.

There's a flesh and a grunt of pain from next to him, and suddenly Blue's hand takes its place next to her sister's. In that second, he feels his soul scream as the hand settles, and Blue is there whispering calming words while scraping at the very concept of **PinkRoseSteven/**_HIM_**/****UniverseQuartzDiamond**.

"She cannot talk, she cannot risk breaking the trance, it will be all that holds you together, but she loves you. You are her world, her universe, and it will be all she dreams about. Endless Halcyon." These words cut through the pain, Steven's mind focuses. "For you, I can promise no such relief... For you this will be a curse." There's a choke in her voice, as large crystal tears run down her face. "You will hate us for this, curse and damn us for a thousand generations yet, but we cannot see any other way. No other path that ends with Cipher banished from this place."

The scratching stops, replaced by burning and power, more power than he's ever held in his life. His wounds snap together in a moment, clarity returns and he watches as Blue doesn't so much as poof, but start blurring like TV static.

Then to nothing. Her Gem lands in his (Freshly regrown) hand sinking into his skin with more power, the 3 Diamond's hands light up in chorus around his own gem, and for a brief moment there's a connection to White and Yellow (GuiltAngerRegretSadnessWrathPride) before they vanish like their sister before, their power flooding into him.

And then there's threads. A connection to a hundred thousand other Gems (Blue's, Yellow's and White's Court) are made known to him, the remnants of Pink's Court too, and he feels as they dissolve, their power melding into his. He looks at Connie, fast asleep, Runes of Power (Her sword is in the headboard, why did he not notice that before?) roaring around the bed.

He tries to step closer, press a kiss to her forehead let her know everything will be okay. The magic doesn't like that though, repels his physical form from the bed. A choked breath rattles from his throat as he turns to the door.

Outside, he finds a broken Obsidian, the statue riddled with scars of white and yellow, no signs of his corrupted friends (_Mums/Sisters_) presumably given mercy in Oblivion by white. Better that than a puppet of Bill, he supposed. Smaller cruelties.

Speaking of, Dipper's form was lit up, runes spread out behind the tacky suit Bill had forced him into, reaching out across the ocean and the ruins of Beach City. The sheer tide of Chaos Magic slamming across... A shield? His Shield. Had White or Yellow picked it up? Oh, the power roaring into him was also cycling through the shield, he was stopping Bill like it was nothing.

"How?! How did they do this?!" As he considers it, the answer makes itself present. Knowledge drawn from **YELLOW/BLUE/WHITE**, writes itself onto his consciousness in a split second and he has to choke back a curse as his soul shudders in mourning.

Its all Steven can do. Mourn for the lives lost, mourn for all of the Gem's who are slowly losing themselves in his soul. Mourn as a rush of energy surges from beneath Beach City, wiping the entire thing out in a flash of **POWER**.

If only he'd made time to ask Dipper about the thrice damned Chaos God before it had become a problem.

-/-

The Cluster is a system that the Diamonds wrap around a planet's core when they first settle on using it as a colony. Whenever the Diamond's decided a planet's not worth the effort, they can trigger an activation signal to 'birth' the cluster, creating a weapon out of what is otherwise deemed a failed experiment.

The resulting activation, regretfully, will destroy everything in the path of the massive energy that is released in the activation.

-/-

The ruins of Beach City drifted through the abyss of space. Steven standing in the middle of it all, flexing just a little bit of his new power cosmic to keep the Planet from collapsing in the wake of the Clusters explosion.

The tears were fresh, but he could feel them turn to steam almost instantly as they tracked down his slowly breaking body. He shouldn't cry, he should be standing proud and tall. Ready to crash against Bill in some sort of big final fight. But the genocide pulsing in his soul was deadening him to the need to act tough for his audience. ('_Fuck you White, Blue, Yellow, what gave you the RIGHT?'_)

"No, no, no! How the hell did they pull this off?!" Bill was frantic, bolts of Chaos still roaring through space and fizzling out meters away from him, the Shield now hovering in front of him, tanking the blows without so much as a chink in the body. "PINK! You little shit, HOW DID THEY DO THIS?!"

He could monologue, he supposed. As he watched his hands burn away their pesky third dimension, the intricacies of the Diamond's plan made themselves like Crystal. (_'The laugh was uncalled for Steven.'_) He understood what they'd done, what it was supposed to achieve.

He knew that this result was unforeseen, and that all they thought they'd be doing was charging him with enough power to live for half a millennium, enough power to give him a shot at containing Bill.

Birthing a Cosmic Existence, that was laughable. No mortal being should ever hold the power to just birth an Elder God, such a thing was laughable.

So he laughed, he laughed and laughed as he locked Bill out of the (His) universe with a negligent wave of his hand.

He laughed as he used White's essence to create a space just a little bit outside reality. (Like a pile of dirty clothes hidden between bed sheets)

As the laughter turned to tears, he created a shrine out of Blue, enclosing her around Connie's form. Sound asleep on the now space faring Queen Single.

And through the tears he forged himself a prison, wrapping him in Yellow, (Wishing he could be enveloped in **PEARLAMETHYSTGARNETRUBYSAPPHIRE **instead) his body dissolving and his soul was painted across Yellow's power. (**CORPSE**)

One day, centuries from now the grief would end and Prism-O would be born.

But for now, and for a long time to come, the Universe Burned.

* * *

**So, uh, 2015 was when I last published something for this head canon? That's a while, huh.**

**Hopefully the next gap won't be quite that long.**


End file.
